China launches water quality dataset for country's largest freshwater lake

China has launched a water environment dataset of Poyang Lake, East China's Jiangxi province, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

Poyang Lake is the largest freshwater lake in China and an important wintering place for waterfowl in Asia, which is also home to over 300 species of birds.

The lake has witnessed remarkable changes in water yield and quality since 2000 due to human activities. Researchers from the Poyang Laboratory for Wetland Ecosystem Research of the CAS conducted positioning observation of the lake from 2013 to 2018.

The indicators, including water temperature, electrical conductivity, dissolved oxygen, alkalinity, total nitrogen and phosphorus were recorded. The results showed that the water quality of Poyang Lake had a rapid worsening trend.

To fight against water quality deterioration of Poyang Lake, Jiangxi has been implementing sewage treatment measures and reducing industrial pollution.

Up till now, 2,595 large-scale and 9,584 above designated size farms around the province have been equipped with waste disposal and utilization facilities.

Since 2018, the province has been strictly controlling high-pollution projects, reducing heavy metal pollution and forging ahead with ecological agriculture, while aquatic plants and fish suitable for purifying water have been cultivated to restore the damaged water ecosystems.